What inspired Tolstoy to write?

Tolstoy remembered a cousin who lived at Yasnaya Polyana, Tatyana Aleksandrovna Yergolskaya (“Aunt Toinette,” as he called her), as the greatest influence on his childhood, and later, as a young man, Tolstoy wrote some of his most-touching letters to her.

What is the beginning of Anna Karenina?

Happy families are all alike
The first sentence of Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina is: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Here Tolstoy means that for a family to be happy, several key aspects must be given (such as good health of all family members, acceptable financial security, and mutual affection) …

Why did Tolstoy name the book Anna Karenina?

What’s more, by naming the novel Anna Karenina, Tolstoy is effectively saying that the life of this one woman is worth eight hundred pages of storytelling. Her concerns are the mundane (i.e., day-to-day) cares of a woman caught in a bad marriage and in love with another man.

When did Tolstoy start writing Anna Karenina?

Anna Karenina, novel by Leo Tolstoy, published in installments between 1875 and 1877 and considered one of the pinnacles of world literature.

What is the opening sentence from Russian Leo Tolstoy’s book circa 1875 Anna Karenina?

Happy families are all alike; every
Anna Karenina’s first line is among these, one of the most famous openings to a novel in all of literature: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

What is the opening sentence of war and peace?

First Line: ” ‘Eh bien, mon prince, Gênes et Lucques ne sont plus que des apanages, des estates, de la famille Buonaparte. ‘ ” (Well, my prince, Genoa and Lucca are now no more than possessions, estates, of the Buonaparte family.)

Is Anna Karenina a real story?

Anna Karenina (Russian: «Анна Каренина», IPA: [ˈanːə kɐˈrʲenʲɪnə]) is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Many writers consider it to be one of the greatest works of literature ever written, and Tolstoy himself called it his first true novel.